Meals On Wheels!

I knew I was getting old (-er by the day) and certainly not making the money I once was BUT I didn’t know I qualified for Meals OnWheels!! Apparently I do because yesterday my cousin Janet (you know the one I like to call Janie) called in the morning and asked Peter if he would like to have a dinner with the most delicious sauce and the pasta of his choice. That was pretty sexy in Peter’s mind – and the fact that he found that sexy is yet another story.

We knew we were in for an all-around great day. We love when Danny and Janet come because we can talk about so many things. First of all we always like to spend a little time discussing her sister Marian ( my cousin) and the ongoing saga of what to do with the house in Vermont? Whether to sell the condo in Florida and why not buy or rent something in Ocean Grove? You know how easy it is to talk about someone else’s business lol lol.

But most of all we love our political conversations. We are kindred spirits when it comes to politics and as the current presidential election draws closer and the antics escalates, we have much to talk about. We breezed through the RNC which amounted to a substance-lacking, misinformation fest and liars convention and moved onto talking about the DNC. Of course since we are all Democrats, it was a lovely conversation praising the eloquence of Bill Clinton, the directness of John Kerry and intelligence, demeanor and character of President Obama. No surprises there, as I said, we are all Democrats.

However, before we convened on the front porch with drinks and a fabulous antipasto, we spent a couple of hours on the beach. Is there anything better than sitting on a virtually empty beach on a beautiful warm sunny September afternoon? Hard to beat that not-too-hot, not humid, soft warmth of the September sun. The sun has quickly shifted to a new slant in the sky, it knows summer is over even if we don’t want to believe it! Did you ever notice your shadow at about 11am during this month? I did a few days ago and realized how intensely dark and visibly outlined your shadow is. This doesn’t happen during the long hazy lazy days of summer.

But back to the porch…we feasted on exquisite semolina bread brought from upstate – thank God because for some unknown reason, here in the heart of the Jersey shore, I can’t find decent Italian bread. Janet brought the bread AND everything else you can imagine or will read about in the next few lines. Perhaps you remember that this cousin Janet, is the one I have referred to in a previous blog as the one with the traveling pantry and bar. Add to that, she arrived with a change of clothes and make-up! Here’s what came out of that cavernous trunk: A liter of white rum, 2 limes, a cucumber, 3 packages of mint leaves, 2 quarts of her famous homemade macaroni gravy, 2 lbs of spaghetti, the loaf of semolina Italian bread, a container of simple syrup, a container of pre-washed lettuce, a container of tomatoes, special salad seasoning, a stick of pepperoni, a jar of fried Italian peppers, a jar of roasted red peppers, a chunk of provolone cheese and a package of brie, 2 bottles of water for the beach, and 2 quarts of seltzer for the Mojitos. Gosh I hope I didn’t forget anything!!! This is serious packing! And so you can only imagine this delightful antipasto which we relished along with Danny’s famous Mojitos. Added to all the delicacies she brought, we added Greek olives, green olives, olives stuffed with blue cheese, dolmades and stuffed red cherry peppers. I am surely prejudiced but seriously you can’t beat a great Italian antipasto!

When the pesky mosquitos started nibbling on Janet and I, we quickly retreated inside where while they watched MSNBC (WHAT ELSE?) I set the table and prepped the dinner. Eventually we sat down to dinner and once again just kvelled ( a Yiddish word meaning gushing, praising) over Janie’s fantastic sauce (aka gravy). It was dark, dark red indicating how long it had simmered into a thick rich ragu laden with sausage, meatballs and pieces of pork. OMG! we ate a whole pound of spaghetti! The salad was barely touched because there really wasn’t much room left after all the pasta we ate. Except of course we found a bit of room about an hour later for some cookies, dark chocolate and tea.

Thank you Danny and Janet for making my day in not quite Clint Eastwood style – although he did make quite a few spaghetti westerns before he made an ass out of himself at the RNC.